Draining the School-to-Prison Pipeline” is a monthly publication addressing issues of community school reintegration, sharing practical recommendations to support returning students, tracking relevant public policy and legislation, and addressing racial and other inequities in Pennsylvania’s educational system.
Testing Kids Into the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Prior to 2002, standardized testing in schools was used only on a state-by-state basis to assess student academic proficiency. That changed with the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which passed Congress with bipartisan support and the backing of civil rights activists as well as business interests (1). NCLB paved the way for schools to be held accountable for the success or failure of their students by tying federal education funding to the scores of a school’s student body on standardized tests in reading and math. Higher-performing schools received increased federal dollars, while lower-performing schools risked losing funding (1).
Although much attention has been paid to the impact of widespread standardized testing on school funding, a lesser-known consequence of such testing across the country is the way that it contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline. In the United States, 80% of incarcerated adults did not complete high school (2). Any element of education that increases school pushout or drop-out is therefore a concern.
Standardized testing contributes to school pushout or drop-out in several ways. It forces instruction to focus more on teaching students how to take a test rather than developing the interests of students or unlocking their creative potential (1). Research has shown that such “test-prep teaching” bores and alienates students and creates a pipeline for disengagement among students leading to higher dropout rates, and behavior problems in school (2). Additionally, students who perform lower on testing were also found to be given longer out-of-school suspensions compared to their higher-performing peers, contributing to academic pushout (2).
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References
(1) Association, N. E. (2021, May). #beyondthebubble. NEA. Retrieved December 22, 2021, from https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/beyondthebubble
(2) The dropout dilemma. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. (2014). Retrieved December 22, 2021, from https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2014/q3/feature1
(3) Klein, A. (2020, December 7). No child left behind: An overview. Education Week. Retrieved December 22, 2021, from https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/no-child-left-behind-an-overview/2015/04